Generation Price
by IronSaint98
Summary: The Dark Crusade rages across the surface of Kronus, all seven factions brutalizing each other in a bid for control of the world. The Imperial Guard finds itself running low on men and resources. The former has only one answer: the people of Kronus itself are conscripted to fill the ranks of the 1st Liberators. A generation consigned to the Emperor's war machine.


The First Day

It's raining the first time Corporal Kol Lockman mans the watch. Kronus is a harsh mistress for the Guardsmen forced to suffer her nature. Water fills the trenches at his feet as he crouch-walks towards the forward listening post. The shallow trench doesn't rate boards that would cross the muck sucking at his heavy, Munitorum issued boots and spattering his ochre trousers. The man he relieves couldn't look more grateful to be free of the watch pit.

They nod to each other and the other man slips out of the trench destined for a nice dry rack and maybe some hot chow. Lockman is doomed to five hours of straining to see through the rain in case of any enemy activity from the south. The Ruinous Powers have been quiet as of late according to command and therefore must be up to some mischief. According to _someone_ with a much higher paygrade than himself. Either way, his immediate future consists of perching his rear on a crate and his boots on the edge of a small camp table that has the vox-set resting on it. His lasgun is rested across his thighs in easy reach just in case.

The weeks of accelerated, compressed training run by some of the senior enlisted of the Kronus 1st Liberators was a grueling course of forced marches and gun drills. All of it an attempt to bring them to some level of competence before being thrown into the meat grinder. The months of fighting have dragged on the Governor-Militant and his staff as much as the men. The Astartes, supposed guardians of Humanity and paragons of all that the Emperor stood for, have been harassing the northern outposts and leaving dead bodies in their wake.

Necrons have been pressing from the west though they too have been silent. And then there is Chaos. The Archenemy has been pressing hard and fast for the last month and a half before withdrawing for some unknown reason. The Liberators were simply grateful for the chance to dig in and cycle the assault companies to the rear for some relaxation and a badly needed refit. The majority of the companies on the line are now green, untested men and women of Kronus stock who joined after being rescued from Tau internment camps. Their attempted reeducation at the hands of the Xenos lit a fire in their souls and inspired them to join the Liberators the moment the recruitment office opened. The regiment's numbers swelled from seven-thousand battle-weary Guardsmen to well over twenty thousand over the course of two months.

With the line stabilized and the more elite formations cycled to the rear the Governor-Militant is praying for a miracle. That something somewhere gives, and the Guard can close a front. The rains aren't making things any easier on the Guardsmen turning the lands surrounding Victory Bay into a quagmire. The swamplands are freezing cold though they lack the insects that plague the other such bogs across the planet. The constant patter of rain against the camouflage netting and his armor threatens to lull him asleep.

On the third hour of his watch he becomes very glad that he didn't submit to the temptation. The winds pick up suddenly at the same time as the rains falling heavier. In between gusts of wind and the sheets of rain he spies the first hint of movement. Shadowy figures sprinting across the muddy no-man's land. His heart leaps into his throat as he keys the vox-set. His cold numbed fingers fumble with the speaking horn for a precious moment before he can grasp it and unhook it.

"Listening post Seven-Sigma reports hostile contacts! Unknown number of foot mobiles! Repeat hostile contact at Seven-Sigma!" he barks into the vox-horn without stuttering and then slams the horn back into place. By now he can see definite figures forming from the mass charging towards the trenches. His lasgun hums as it comes to full charge in his hands and he sets it on the edge of the pit to steady it. The cold numbs his fingers and the metal of his weapon's stock is freezing against his cheek. He ignores it all.

He waits until he can see the tattoos and ritual brands in the form of eye-aching symbols carved into the flesh of the Archenemy Cultists. His finger curls around the trigger and gently squeezes. The searing lasbeam lashes out through the sheets of rain evaporating the droplets caught in its path and then slamming home in the lead heretic's chest. The traitor tumbles into the mud and Lockman shifts his aim once again. Heavy bolter fire joins his lasgun as the defenses are brought online. Heavy bolters chew through the unarmored chaff sent at the trenches as turrets and crew served weapons are brought to bear. Lockman's lasgun fires five more times claiming four more kills before he must abandon the listening post and retreat, lugging the vox-set with him.

The water and mud suck at his boots as he runs praying that he isn't shot in the back. The ground shakes as Earthshaker batteries announce their presence from concealed positions on the ridge behind the trenches. The massive shells pound no-man's land with a relentless intensity shredding bodies and digging craters that are soon filled with rainwater. Lasguns crackle in a brilliant wave of crimson light scything down the heretics behind him. Lockman slams into the wall of the first trench.

He sets down his lasgun to put his arms through the straps of the vox-set and then joins the gunline. The heretics have already crossed the first line of barbed wire by using their own corpses as bridges. The report of Lockman's weapon is quickly lost in the fusillade hammering the charging heretics. They come in a single screaming wave trampling their wounded and frothing at the mouth with their fury. It's disgusting.

The hate fueled by that disgust burns in his chest as he guns them down without regard for his own safety. Solid slugs and lasbeams smack into the sandbag parapets before him spraying clumped together sand into his eyes. The red goggles fixed to his helmet keeps it from interfering with his sight, but it is annoying. A man beside him takes a lasbeam to the face, another farther down the trench suffers a slug to the throat. More Imperials fall as the Cultists cross the second line of wire and begin their charge against the trench proper.

"Fix bayonets!" Lockman's eyes snap over to the speaker. The imposing form of a Commissar in his peaked cap and greatcoat surrounded by a squad of Regimental Provosts cuts a stunning picture against the background flashes of artillery and lasguns. His bolt pistol barks with the signature _crack-whoosh_ of its two-stage propulsion and a heretic dies without a chest. The Provosts form two ranks and unleash disciplined volleys of lasfire. Lockman draws his bayonet and twists it into place alongside the entire trench line. The artillery bombardment creeps inwards forming a shield beyond the wire and disrupting the flow of cultists to the fight but doesn't stop it. A last desperate volley of lasfire scythes down the heretics like wheat in a field before they reach the trenches and leap into them.

Lockman catches one cultist in the gut with his bayonet and roars with the effort of flipping the body over the other side of the trench. He turns in time to see one scarred brute bludgeoning a Guardsman's skull in with a length of pipe. Lockman roars in anger and plunges his bayonet into the big man's back and pulls the trigger. The lasbeam punches a hole through the man and blasts the corpse from his blade. On instinct he whips the buttstock around to shatter another cultist's jaw. The lasgun is brought to bear and Imperial steel pierces the damned man's chest. More and more cultists leap into the trench to die and before long the trenches are clogged with struggling men and corpses.

A pipe smashes into Lockman's helmet stunning him for a moment until the trench wall knocks sense back into him. The screaming heretic standing over him raises the pipe for another blow only to receive a size eleven Munitorum issue steel-toe to the crotch. Lockman leaps on the squealing man and brings his lasgun up and down, smashing the buttstock into the traitor's face again and again. He doesn't stop until there is nothing left of the tattooed traitor's face. A sudden force slams into him from the side. He ignores the pain spreading across his ribs and rolls on his back, hands empty of his lasgun. A heretic stands over him with a lasgun aimed at his face.

For a moment he wishes he was more pious so that he might be assured of his place by the Emperor. A savage, manic joy gleams in the heretic's eyes as he pulls the trigger. Only for nothing to come out, the power cell drained dry. The click rips the smile from the heretic's twisted and pierced lips…then a glittering blade erupts from his chest. The Commissar rips his crackling power sword from the heretic's chest and shoves the body aside.

"On your feet Guardsman! The Emperor's work is not yet done. Get on the vox to command and get them to commit the armored reserves! Throne willing we'll drive them back to their temple this day!" And with that the Commissar disappears in a swirl of leather coat and a booming report from his pistol. With a groan Lockman rolls over and slips the vox-set from his shoulders and rests it on the dead heretic to keep it out of the water and blood.

**((-))**

An hour of mop up later sees the Corporal and the rest of his now rather tattered squad crammed into a Chimera and rolling across the blasted wasteland that was once verdant fields. The roaring engine eliminates any possibility of conversation between the now thoroughly exhausted greenhorns, but their tired expressions says it all. Their Sergeant took a lasbeam to the face during the opening engagement leaving Lockman as the senior enlisted in the squad of six. Brolman cradles the bulky body of the squad's grenade launcher like a child. His dark brown eyes stare through the floor plate of the APC.

**((-))**

The rest of the squad is in a similar state as if their minds have gone into a low power mode to conserve energy. He can't think of anything to break them out of it. Too much death in too short of a span of time for unprepared minds. That they are functioning at all is a mark of their strength of mind. The dazed calm of APC is shattered by a squeal on the vox-net in their ears. The Chimera bucks and fire erupts from the driver's compartment. The entire squad is thrown about while the driver starts screaming incoherently in pain. Lockman doesn't hesitate to hammer the release for the ramp. The Squad falls out in good order under the suppressive fire from the remaining Chimera transports and the squadron of Leman Russ MBTs.

**((-))**

The swamp seems to catch fire. Lasbeams burst from the trees to smack into armor or claim lives. Brolman fires a round into the distant tree line and is rewarded with a shredded corpse flying through the air. Flesh bursts under the heat of coherent light, limbs are torn off by mass-reactive shells, booming autocannons shred armor plating and Lockman mutters curses under his breath while diving into the relative safety of a half-flooded ditch beside the roadway. Fetid water floods his mouth and he surfaces coughing while struggling to keep his rations down.

"Suppressive fire on the tree-line! Let the tanks take the beating!" he barks over the roar of the vehicle mounted weapons. His squad hurriedly crawls to the lip of the road and joins their fire to his diligently spraying the enemy's positions with searing light. The tanks grind forward relying on thick armor and big guns to survive the onslaught. A Chaos corrupted Leman Russ decorated with the rotting corpses of children hung from hooks around its turret and the eight-pointed star painted on its flanks appears from the trees.

Every Imperial Leman Russ traverses their turret and fire at the same time. The traitor tank erupts in flames and sprays its wreckage through the air, no doubt killing more heretics hiding around it. The fire drops off after that, shadowy figures retreating through the smoke and leaving the Guardsmen with their dead. They don't stop to bury them.

**((-))**

Heavy bolter fire splits the air over Lockman's head driving him to ground against the slope of the small hill. The heretical troops manning the heavy gun spit curses in a twisted language that has no place being spoken by the human tongue. His breath burns in his lungs after the hours of assaulting up steep embankments and wild sprints to clear the fire lanes of the cleverly concealed guns. The tanks have been little help in clearing away the more difficult to reach emplacements thanks to small teams with rocket launchers that have been appearing at random.

The rest of Lockman's squad is in a similar position scattered across the face of the hill, though Mahtrix is busy fiddling with a battered vox-set liberated from a dead operator two hills back. The Lieutenant is safe crouched behind his personal Chimera and watches the assault through a set of optics. Mahtrix obviously finds what he is looking for because one of the Chimeras traverses its turret and fires a salvo of high-powered lasbeams at the top of the hill. The more powerful version of a lasgun turns what earth it hits into glass and burst several of the sandbags ringing the gun with their force. Lockman takes advantage of the lull in fire to scramble another three meters up the hill and into grenade range.

He plucks one of the fist sized charges from his harness and primes it with a jerk on the pin. He grunts and tosses it in a high arc losing sight of it when it lands. The charge detonates with a low _crump_ and sends a bleeding body over the gun. Without waiting for the rest of his squad he charges boots digging deep into the loose earth. One stunned and bleeding heretic lurches to his feet with a dazed look in his eyes. Lockman doesn't stop his charge but fires to lasbeams that strike the cultists in the chest and pitch his corpse back. The rest of his squad arrives a heartbeat behind him as he rams his bayonet through the last gunner's throat and fires a lasbeam at point blank, tearing the heretic's head off.

Lasfire crackles overhead cooking the very air they breathe and driving the squad into cover. The remaining heretics on the hill are down below them, retreating from their positions and leaving crates of ammunition that could be used later. The Guardsmen don't hesitate and lay down a vicious volume of fire ultimately claiming twenty-three heretics without loss. Five minutes later the orders are passed from command to hold what ground they have. An hour later and the veteran assault companies are mobilized to finish the reconquest of the Eres Badlands. So ends his first day in the war for Kronus.


End file.
